Page 34 - The Architecture of Nadler-Nadler-Bixon-Gil

architecture that took place during that period. The original
model, presented for the competition, is reminiscent of
the National Library – yet also of Le Corbusier’s Villa
Savoye. The final design is already speaking the visual
language of monumental architecture: heavy, sculptural,
official and theatrical. The same process is also evident
in the Elias Sourasky Central Library at Tel Aviv University
(1964-68), designed according to similar principles. Both
cases express the teamwork that characterized the firm’s
output – a practice comprising architects with different
worldviews, with each maintaining her or his unique
visual expression whilst combining their professional
careers as partners.

Sharing the workload and responsibilities with a
third partner allowed Shulamit and Michael to fulfil their
desire to go on study tours abroad, especially to the
United States. Evidence of these trips is found abundantly
in their private archive, in the form of hundreds of
photographic slides of contemporary architecture which
influenced the firm’s work as it developed.

Bixon sums up those years: “We worked mostly
on competitions, we lived competitions day and night,
and it was that which elevated us. We shared the workload
naturally: the design process was definitely shared, and
building supervision was divided among us. In the 1960s
many employees joined the firm, at one point over twenty.
The office moved from Bar-Kochva Street to Helsinki
Street in north Tel Aviv, which is when Moshe Gil joined us.”

“We welcomed Gil into the firm due to his
character and his work, which presented more freedom
in forms, in controlling of forms, which was an aspect we
wanted to develop,” recalls Shulamit. “We were already
set in simplicity; we tended toward clarity and simplicity,
and Gil wanted to misbehave. Of course, the question
is who goes wild; Bixon, as opposed to Gil, was more
similar to us.”

Moshe Gil was born in Chernivici, then part of Romania,
in 1933 to Lily and Zvi Golz. In those troubled times prior
to World War II ordinary schooling was impossible, and at

31